How the FBI Lost Its Way

“Uh, Pat, the FBI is at the door,” my wife called out to me on an otherwise quiet Tuesday morning last month.

Those words would strike fear in most, but this wasn’t the first time I’d heard such a thing. In my almost two decades with the FBI, colleagues helped with childcare, invited one another over for holidays, and drove each other to doctor appointments. A pop-in wasn’t out of the ordinary.

But this time seemed different, and I could hear it in my wife’s voice. Two agents stood on my front stoop. They didn’t appear to be there to catch up with an old pal. Their unmarked car was wedged in my driveway, and their tone sounded adversarial. They presented a nondisclosure agreement that I had signed last year when I resigned out of frustration with both the bureau and my deteriorating mental health.

Their concern, it seemed, was my cooperation with an international media investigation that could expose embarrassing failures within the FBI, the Department of Justice, and our German police partners.

As the Washington Post, Der Spiegel, and others have reported, investigators uncovered a sprawling, sadistic child-abuse network called “764.” Its members shared images of torture and abuse and pressured children to harm themselves.

In 2022, we identified and warned German police about a key suspect in Hamburg who used the alias “White Tiger.” Despite detailed, specific intelligence, German authorities failed to act. Only after additional crimes—including the death of a 13-year-old Gig Harbor boy, which I investigated—was the suspect arrested, years later.

The case raised disturbing questions about missed opportunities and international law enforcement. But the failures were not limited to German police. They also illustrate how the FBI, once fearless in its mission, has become paralyzed by bureaucracy and risk aversion—and how desperately it needs reform.

I saw the FBI’s transformation firsthand. In my time at the bureau, investigators who knew cases best were second-guessed by managers with little operational experience. Every agent misstep spawned a mandatory training module, which distracted from pursuing urgent leads. Bureaucrats stalled big cases, micromanaged small ones, and stifled resources for critical national security work. The American people paid the price.

Meantime, street agents—those who execute the bureau’s mission—were underpaid and overburdened. Many senior ones counted the days until retirement. New agents, many recruited from lucrative careers elsewhere, were sent with their families to expensive cities and paid salaries near the poverty line.

When I joined the FBI after 9/11, I knew my work was meaningful. I deployed to war zones, ran informants into terrorist groups, and sought to recover hostages. Many rank-and-file agents retain that sense of mission.

But excessive administration, obsolete technology, and careerist executives have degraded morale and distracted the bureau. What should be the world’s premier law enforcement agency has become top-heavy and self-absorbed. The Hamburg case is a devastating reminder of what happens when the FBI loses sight of its purpose.

The FBI can correct course, but it should embrace three reforms. First, leadership needs to reconnect with and advocate for the rank-and-file. That means honest feedback, candid conversations, and respect for agents’ financial and personal sacrifices.

Second, agents, not managers or political appointees, should become the FBI’s backbone again. To do that, the FBI must streamline intelligence functions, send resources into the field, and remove unnecessary oversight.

Finally, the bureau must return to its core mission: protecting the vulnerable and upholding the law, not shielding itself from embarrassment or bending to partisanship. The FBI serves our nation, not any one administration.

To be sure, the bureau today still accomplishes righteous work. Agents stop complex cyber and financial crimes, combat foreign influence, and disrupt terrorist plots every day. But these successes happen despite the FBI’s leadership and general dysfunction.

The bureau I joined was not perfect, but it was fearless. Today’s FBI too often is scared of its own shadow—hiding behind legal threats while demoralizing its workforce and ignoring real priorities.

I want only protection for future victims—and to sound a warning. I, too, want to see justice rendered in the White Tiger trial. But some leaders will always be company men first, public servants second. Maybe that’s precisely the problem.

Message from Jim Robinson:

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